More frequent and more economically costly storms, floods, droughts and other extreme weather. Wetter conditions in northern Europe but drier weather in the south that could threaten agriculture in some areas. More frequent and more intense heatwaves, posing a lethal threat to the elderly and frail. Melting glaciers, with three-quarters of those in the Swiss Alps likely to disappear by 2050. Rising sea levels for centuries to come.

NEWS RELEASE

Copenhagen, 18 August 2004

Europe needs adaptation strategies to limit climate change
impacts

More frequent and more economically costly storms,
floods, droughts and other extreme weather. Wetter conditions in
northern Europe but drier weather in the south that could threaten
agriculture in some areas. More frequent and more intense heatwaves,
posing a lethal threat to the elderly and frail. Melting glaciers, with
three-quarters of those in the Swiss Alps likely to disappear by 2050.
Rising sea levels for centuries to come.

These are among the impacts of global climate
change that are already being seen in Europe or are projected to happen
over the coming decades as global temperatures rise, according to a new
report from the European Environment Agency (EEA).

Strong evidence exists that most of the global
warming over the past 50 years has been caused by human activities, in
particular emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, such as carbon
dioxide (CO2) from the burning of fossil fuels.

The concentration of CO2, the main greenhouse gas,
in the lower atmosphere is now at its highest for at least 420,000
years - possibly even 20 million years - and stands 34% above its level
before the Industrial Revolution. The rise has been accelerating since
1950.

The summer floods of 2002 and last year's summer
heatwave are recent examples of how destructive extreme weather can
be.

The serious flooding in 11 countries in August 2002
killed about 80 people, affected more than 600,000 and caused economic
losses of at least 15 billion US$. In the summer 2003 heatwave western
and southern Europe recorded more than 20,000 excess deaths,
particularly among elderly people. Crop harvests in many southern
countries were down by as much as 30%. Melting reduced the mass of the
Alpine glaciers by one-tenth in 2003 alone.

"This report pulls together a wealth of evidence
that climate change is already happening and having widespread impacts,
many of them with substantial economic costs, on people and ecosystems
across Europe," said Prof. Jacqueline McGlade, EEA Executive
Director.

She added: "Europe has to continue to lead
worldwide efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but this report
also underlines that strategies are needed, at European, regional,
national and local level, to adapt to climate change. This is a
phenomenon that will considerably affect our societies and environments
for decades and centuries to come."

The extent and rate of the climate changes under
way most likely exceed all natural variation in climate over the last
thousand years and possibly longer. The 1990s were the warmest decade
on record and the three hottest years recorded - 1998, 2002 and 2003 -
have occurred in the last six years. The global warming rate is now
almost 0.2 °C per decade.

Europe is warming faster than the global average.
The temperature in Europe has risen by an average of 0.95 °C in the
last hundred years and is projected to climb by a further 2.0-6.3 °C
this century as emissions of greenhouse gases continue building up.

As a first step towards reversing this trend, the
world's governments in 1997 agreed the Kyoto Protocol, an international
treaty under which industrialised countries would reduce their
emissions of six greenhouse gases by around 5% between 1990 and
2012.

So far 123 countries, including all member states
of the European Union, have ratified the treaty but the US, the biggest
emitter of greenhouse gases, has decided against doing so. To enter
into force the Protocol still needs ratification by Russia.

In addition to those mentioned above, a broad range
of current and future impacts of climate change in Europe are
highlighted in the report, including the following:

Almost two out of every three catastrophic events since 1980 have
been directly attributable to floods, storms, droughts or heatwaves.
The average number of such weather and climate-related disasters per
year doubled over the 1990s compared with the previous decade. Economic
losses from such events have more than doubled over the past 20 years
to around 11 billion US$ annually. This is due to several reasons,
including the greater frequency of such events but also socio-economic
factors such as increased household wealth, more urbanisation and more
costly infrastructure in vulnerable areas.

The annual number of floods in Europe and the numbers of people
affected by them are rising. Climate change is likely to increase the
frequency of flooding, particularly of flash floods, which pose the
greatest danger to people.

Climate change over the past three decades has caused decreases in
populations of plant species in various parts of Europe, including
mountain regions. Some plants are likely to become extinct as other
factors, such as fragmentation of habitats, limit the ability of plant
species to adapt to climate change.

Glaciers in eight of Europe's nine glacial regions are in retreat,
and are at their lowest levels for 5,000 years.

Sea levels in Europe rose by 0.8-3.0 mm per year in the last
century. The rate of increase is projected to be 2-4 times higher
during this century.

Projections show that by 2080 cold winters could disappear almost
entirely and hot summers, droughts and incidents of heavy rain or hail
could become much more frequent.

Climate change does appear to have some positive impacts too,
however.

Agriculture in most parts of Europe, particularly the mid latitudes
and northern Europe, could potentially benefit from a limited
temperature rise. But while Europe's cultivated area may expand
northwards, in some parts of southern Europe agriculture could be
threatened by water shortages. And more frequent extreme weather,
especially heatwaves, could mean more bad harvests. Whether positive
impacts occur will greatly depend on agriculture's capacity to adapt to
climate change.

The annual growing season for plants, including agricultural crops,
lengthened by an average of 10 days between 1962 and 1995 and is
projected to continue getting longer.

The survival rate of bird species wintering in Europe has improved
over the past few decades and is likely to increase further as winter
temperatures continue rising.

The Kyoto Protocol is a first step towards the UNFCCC's ultimate
objective to "achieve stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in
the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic
[human] interference with the climate system." What this level should
be is not stated, but the EU has defined an indicative target for
long-term global temperature rise of not more than 2 °C above
pre-industrial levels. On present trends this target is likely to be
exceeded around 2050. Achieving both the EU temperature target and the
UNFCCC objective would require a substantial reduction in global
greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels.

The report examines the state of climate change and its impacts in
Europe by using 22 indicators that fall into eight broad categories:
atmosphere and climate; glaciers, snow and ice; marine systems;
terrestrial ecosystems and biodiversity; water; agriculture; economy;
and human health. For almost all the indicators a clear trend exists
and impacts are already being observed. The 22 indicators illustrate
only a small range of the potential consequences of climate change, but
in other areas insufficient data are available for Europe or
uncertainty exists over whether climate change is the cause of changes
in the indicators. The report was prepared for the EEA by its European
Topic Centre on Air and Climate Change, including the Umweltbundesamt
(Federal Environmental Agency, Germany) and RIVM (National Institute of
Public Health and the Environment, the Netherlands) who both also
contributed through additional national funding.

About the EEA

The European Environment Agency is the leading
public body in Europe dedicated to providing sound, independent
information on the environment to policy-makers and the public.
Operational in Copenhagen since 1994, the EEA is the hub of the
European environment information and observation network (Eionet), a
network of around 300 bodies across Europe through which it collects
and disseminates environment-related data and information. An EU body,
the Agency is open to all nations that share its objectives. It
currently has 31 member countries: the 25 EU Member States, three EU
candidate countries - Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey - and Iceland,
Liechtenstein and Norway. A membership agreement has been initialled
with Switzerland.